


love you like it's the end of the world

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apocalypse, Dancing, M/M, Songfic, Unhappy Ending, end of the world by a great big world, look they die in an implied way, references to pompeii but not bc rome doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: ba sing se burns around them, flames licking supernaturally high among houses made of cheap wood and dust. if zuko breathes deep enough he can smell his father’s fire, the bitter scent that always came with his rage.he is crying but the air is so hot that his tears evaporate as they leave clean tracks down his ash-striped face, steam rising into the air for just a moment. next to him, sokka stretches out on the roof, bad leg carefully crossed over his other one. he stares up at the sky like he’s moongazing, but zuko knows without looking that a canopy of smoke hangs overhead and blocks out any light that could bleed through. the stars won’t watch over ba sing se tonight.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68





	love you like it's the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Optimist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Optimist/gifts).



Ba Sing Se burns around them, flames licking supernaturally high among houses made of cheap wood and dust. If Zuko breathes deep enough he can smell his father’s fire, the bitter scent that always came with his rage. 

No, not Ozai’s rage. His indifference, hunger. It smells like corruption, like every evil act Zuko has ever seen, has ever stood next to and ignored, has ever chased after until his lungs burned like tinder in a pyre. It smells like dishonor, and it makes Zuko want to tear his good eye out and set the sky on fire.

He is crying but the air is so hot that his tears evaporate as they leave clean tracks down his ash-striped face, steam rising into the air for just a moment. 

Still, if he ignores the smell, ignores the heat, ignores the suddenly unbearable feeling of straw thatching under Zuko’s palms, he feels… calm. Passive, accepting of his life in a way he doesn’t ever remember being. This is where he was meant to die all along,  _ how  _ he was meant to die all along. Collateral damage. Not even a real martyr, not really, just another child burned to ashes as his father takes another step forward. Ants under their feet.

Next to him, Sokka stretches out on the roof, bad leg carefully crossed over his other one. He stares up at the sky like he’s moongazing, but Zuko knows without looking that a canopy of smoke hangs overhead and blocks out any light that could bleed through. The stars won’t watch over Ba Sing Se tonight.

He’s saying- singing?- something, mouth moving and eyes closed.

The fire rages loud- louder than fire should be, louder than Zuko knows that it is. Fire is  _ silent,  _ but this fire screams the pain of the world with it. Still, Sokka’s voice is just barely loud enough that Zuko can hear it, melody humming through to words, to a song Zuko doesn’t know. 

_ “We'll live forever; they'll study our bones, write stories about us and carve us in stone.” _

Some part of Zuko wants to scream and some part of him wants to dance, to sing until his lungs give out from the ashes swirling around him because they  _ failed,  _ so he might as well make his last moments be loud, make them embody the joy he was supposed to feel when it ended  _ right _ .

Sokka, beside him, flutters his eyes closed, mouth still methodically forming verse. His brown skin is reddened from the heat and the inescapable orange light shining around them, some disgusting mockery of the light from the sun, the rise of the  _ Phoenix King.  _

_ “So they can remember what true love was like- but this isn't about them; it's just us tonight.” _

Zuko bounces up onto his toes, knees bent in a squat next to Sokka. Moving feels weird, simultaneously heavy with aches and injuries and easier than it’s ever been, the weight of his future gone from his shoulders. “Hey,” he says, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. Something tells him there’s no way Sokka can hear him over the wailing of the fires, but the other boy smiles like he hears perfectly. Like he would always hear Zuko, like he would always understand. “Dance with me?”

Helping Sokka stand is awkward, avoiding putting any weight on his bad leg and making sure neither of them slide down the gentle slope made slippery by fallen ashes, but they hold each other throughout it and when they finally stand, Sokka on his good leg and clutching Zuko for balance, it feels almost like the world shrinks to only the two of them. 

_ “So let's cheers to the moments of beauty we've found, as the city burns to the ground.” _

Sokka’s arms rest solidly around Zuko’s neck, fingers linked behind him. His face is only a few inches from Zuko’s face as he sings and it feels like the razing fire sings with him, the overwhelming noise schooling itself into instrumental accompaniment. Sokka’s voice is rough, made rougher with the smoke they’re slowly inhaling, but Zuko can easily imagine it happy and sweet again. He wishes it could ever be that again.

Zuko leans forward so that their foreheads meet and closes his eyes gently. There are strands of dark hair plastered to Zuko’s forehead and a cut underneath Sokka’s eye that’s slowly dripping blood, but neither of them care as they sway in place. 

It’s not a  _ dance,  _ really, not like the waltzes Zuko learned when he was young and not like the joyfully methodical dragon dance, but it feels like closeness, like safety, and it lets Zuko exhale peace when he breathes.

_ “If the streets were on fire, well, we'd never know. We'd be lost in each other instead of the smoke,”  _ Sokka continues, song melting into a mumble with Zuko’s new closeness. Around them, the music of the flames licks higher, contrasting with the quiet lyrics in Zuko’s ears. Zuko clutches tighter at Sokka’s back, thin fabric creasing beneath his fingers. He wishes he didn’t know, wishes he could truly melt the world down to just him and Sokka for the last moments of eternity. 

Once, long ago, the volcano that the capitol sits at the base of erupted, lava spilling down its sides like harbingers of rebirth. The remains of that past city have been mostly unexplored, but the basalt-wrapped remains of two people had been found, shown in a museum as something between a novelty and a strange reminder of our own mortality. The plaque below them had said that they must have died holding each other, grasping for some last hope in a burning world. Zuko remembers feeling choked, some horrible realization that when the world ended in fire he would be alone with no one to hold onto, and then the quiet reassurance that he would never burn.

There’s a funny sort of relieved grief in the fact that he was wrong on both counts. 

Sokka shifts tones, voice tilting higher and louder again and Zuko can feel the other boy’s brow furrow, can imagine the choking feeling of singing through tears. 

_ “I wanna remember the shape of your lips, ‘cause I wouldn't miss breathing as much as your kiss,”  _ and Zuko leans away, slowly bringing one hand from it’s place against Sokka’s back to brush away some of the smeared blood on the taller boy’s face and cup his jaw. Sokka’s eyes flutter open for just a moment before they kiss, hard and insistent, ash filled tears evaporating against each other’s cheeks. 

Zuko does his best to press every word he doesn’t have the time, the voice, the ability to speak without coughing up blood, to say into the kiss and he knows somewhere in his sternum that Sokka is doing the same, that their kiss is trying to express something too big for either of them to say aloud, to even really understand. They’re only sixteen, there are so many things they don’t understand. 

Around them, the fire finishes the song that Sokka can’t, screaming against Zuko’s ears, straining against its horrible masters and its nature to destruction to give them one last moment to breathe, to  _ live.  _

_ “Baby, let’s go out with a bang,”  _ it exhales,  _ “we’ll be the last love song ever sang.” _

**Author's Note:**

> \- i don't have much of anything to say about this!! the_optimist commented on one of my fics that "end of the world" was a zukka song and i literally didn't stop thinking about it until i wrote this bc they're SO RIGHT afdkljflskjdf  
> \- you can definately believe that right after this aang and katara swoop in and save the day!! this doesn't need to be sad!! don't worry they live happily ever after  
> \- as always, i'd really appreciate if you'd comment and kudos if you enjoyed this!! i'm on tumblr [@lazypigeon](https://lazypigeon.tumblr.com/).


End file.
